Exercising the abdominal muscle group has been traditionally performed either with or without the assistance of an apparatus. The common “sit up” or abdominal crunch is performed by laying down flat on the floor with knees bent and facing up. The weight of the upper torso is used as resistance to contract the abdominal muscles during raising the upper torso until the elbows make contact with the knees. Although performing abdominal exercise without machine assistance may be beneficial, it may also cause damage to the body if not performed correctly. Further, the effectiveness of the exercise also varies depending on the techniques used without machines. Consequently, physical fitness trainers realized that exercising the abdominal muscles could be made much more efficient and effective if assisted with a machine.
There are several well known advantages of using machines to assist in abdominal muscle exercise. One advantage is that a well designed exercise machine may reduce the risk of inadvertent strain damage to other muscle groups, specifically lower back strain which is the most common muscle group damaged by strain during abdominal muscle exercise. A second advantage of using abdominal exercise apparatus is to ensure that the abdominal muscles are efficiently exercised during every repetition by keeping the motion of the body in a uniform, consistent and effective range of motion to maximize workout efficiency.
A third advantage of using an assisting machine is that as the user becomes more physically fit he may add additional mechanical resistance during his workout to make the abdominal muscles work even harder during the exercise. The resistance of a machine of course may also be reduced on the same machine for the opposite effect. For example, when the user is just beginning an exercise regimen after a period of inactivity, the user may want to start out the exercise with little or no extra resistance so as to avoid overworking the abdominal muscles until strength has been built up.
Abdominal muscle exercise equipment commonly used in physical fitness centers today range in complexity from basic static inclined benches with adjustable inclination angle that hold the feet locked together to more complex machines that have one or more moving components that assist in maintaining a uniform and consistent range of motion. The group of dynamic abdominal exercise machines of prior art are commonly referred to as “push-pull” devices because they require the user to first pull his elbows and knees together during abdominal muscle contraction followed by a pushing apart of the elbows and knees to return to a relaxed abdominal muscle condition.
There are several common problems that have been observed by this inventor in the current state of the art of abdominal exercise machines. The first problem is that abdominal exercise machine designs are normally not designed to be portable. Common abdominal exercise machine designs are made from large heavy welded square tubing and are often rigidly mounted into even larger exercise stations. A second common problem observed is those most abdominal exercise machines are not affordable for the average consumer to purchase for home use. As a result, most people who use abdominal exercise machines do not have their own machine for home use but instead spend money at fitness centers and use shared abdominal exercise machines at fitness centers. A further common problem with exercise machines shared in fitness centers is poor hygienic upkeep caused by users throughout the day who do not properly clean off their sweat from the machines after use.
A third common problem is that current abdominal exercise machine designs do not provide adequate fixed support for the knees and elbows throughout the entire range of motion during each exercise repetition. One byproduct of the lack of fixed support of knees and elbows is that users can cheat during their workouts by decreasing the range of movement when doing multiple repetitions. A fourth problem seen is that most abdominal exercise machines typically do not allow the user to easily adjust the resistance of the machine during exercise. Those machines seen in the current state of the art that do have variable resistance often use bulky rectangular pinned plate and cable pulley designs that are bulky, lack portability and are furthermore too expensive to purchase for the average person. A fifth problem in the current art is that the adjustment of the range of motion is typically made difficult through the use of bulky components such as shear pins.
This invention solves or ameliorates these problems noted in the current state of the art by providing an abdominal muscle exercise machine that is designed to be portable and inexpensive to purchase while further providing a highly efficient and controlled range of motion including the capability of variable machine resistance against the pushing and pulling work done during each exercise motion.